Skittles

I love Skittels, but not so keen on what they are doing with their website…

This morning on Twitter there was a lot of talk about the skittles home page, so I checked it out. The home page has been replaced with a live twitter search feed on the brand. Actually the whole site has been replaced with skittles entries on wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr. The only “corporate” thing left is a widget like navigation console on the top left. This site explains what’s happening.

I get the principle behind Skittles latest move. Many companies are starting to realize that whatever content they offer online pales in comparison to where the community contributes to the whole via various social media sites; even the simple fact of generating buzz (it’s worked). Yet, I’m of the impression that when I go to a corporate website, I want to hear from the company as well as the fans and cynics. It’s nice to see the real time skittles recommendations on Twitter, but you have to dig through all the shout-outs and profanity. Where is Skittle’s voice? It seems like they are putting in no effort into their own online branding.